Back again!

I know, I have been terribly remiss!  It's been ages since I updated this blog.  Nothing very interesting has been going on, and the light hasn't been good for photos.  Now, however, it's gardening time again! Yet again I have way too many seedlings and can't fit them all under my lights.

 At least a good number of them are cool weather crops, and I'm finally starting to get them into the ground, thus making room for the new seedlings.  I finally got a heating mat for my germination flat, and that's made a huge difference in my success rate with some of my warmer weather plants!  Peppers and basil especially have had much better germination rates for me this year.  I hope the growing season continues to be this successful once I get them in the ground!

I'm trying several new plants this year!  In addition to lettuce I've got Swiss chard and spinach in the ground!  My broccoli seedlings aren't quite big enough yet, so it'll be another couple of weeks before I can plant them out.

I've also got a whole bunch of herbs going this year that I didn't have last year.  I get really tired of swapping places between not having fresh herbs on hand when I need them, and buying them so I have them but not using them up quickly enough.  I really hope that I'll have planted enough basil this year, and that it does better than it did last year! 

My mint is coming up nicely, and much to my surprise and delight I discovered that two of my parsley plants survived the winter!  Yay!  I had piled all our dead leaves into the garden last fall, instead of bagging them, and I suspect that's what did it. 

My peas seem to be doing nicely as well!  This is what the first shoots looked like a few weeks ago . . .

and here is what they look like now!

I'm very much looking forward to fresh peas in a few weeks, and I'm definitely looking forward to mid-late May, when I can start planting out everything else!